So you, or the company you work for, have finally decided to join the thousands of other companies and create a Facebook page to promote your brand – but now what? Official Page or Community Page? Use your own personal profile, if you have one, or use a business account? The following post will help guide you in the right direction as to which Facebook page is right for your company.
Facebook, over time, has realized that it’s not just being used by individuals anymore, but rather by businesses and organizations as well. In early 2009, Facebook introduced Pages to their service and according to Facebook, “Pages are for organizations, businesses, celebrities, and bands to broadcast great information in an official, public manner to people who choose to connect with them.” There are two types of Facebook Pages: Official Pages and Community Pages.
Official Pages, aka Fan Pages, aka Like Pages as of April 19, 2010, can be used for business, brand, product, or organization, artist, band or public figure but you need to be the official representative and have permission to create the page. A Community Page is used to create support for a cause or topic such as “I heart knitting” or “Vote Elmo for President”.
So, now that the different pages are defined, and an official page would be the right choice, you need to figure out how to actually set up the page properly. There are two options: one, you can use your personal profile or, two, you can use a business account.
If you are comfortable with Facebook and would like to add additional applications to your page other than Discussion Boards, Events, Links, Notes, Photos, Reviews, or Video then you will have to associate your profile with the page. This is great if it will just be you monitoring the page as it is one less password you have to remember, but if multiple people are responsible, do you really want to hand out your personal login credentials to your co-workers? Using a personal profile though does let you use Facebook to its fullest potential with apps like polls, surveys, custom tabs, etc.
A business account lets you create a page, with limited accessibility, without creating a profile. This type of page setup is great if you want multiple people to log into the account, however, you cannot add additional applications. This may change in the future, but currently, what you see in the apps department is what you get.
If at the current moment you are only comfortable with the default apps like photos and events and are thinking of using the business account to set up your page, you have to think about the future. Let’s say, 6 months fly by and you’ve become a whiz at Facebook and you want to do more with the company Like Page but you can’t because you used a business account. What do you do? You cannot transfer all the data or connections you created over the 6 months to a new page. If you use the link, “Create Your Profile”, located at the top of the page, it creates a new profile for that account. If you create a second profile for yourself, you are then in violation with the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities for Facebook and run the risk of having both profiles removed.
Although this may seem a bit overwhelming at first, it can save time, money and future headaches if your company Facebook Page is set up properly from the beginning. For more help on this topic, you can visit the Facebook Help Center.
If this post was helpful, check out Facebook – 7 tips to increase your online visibility for more information on using Facebook.
Related posts: